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Justices of the US Supreme Court are ready to consider President Donald Trump’s decision to exclude illegal immigrants from the population totals used to assign congressional districts to states., a facet of his hardline stance on immigration that he pursued in his final weeks in office.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three Trump-appointed justices, is scheduled to hear an 80-minute oral argument by teleconference. The judges are deciding the case on an accelerated schedule, with a ruling before the end of the year. That would make it difficult for President-elect Joe Biden to review Trump’s plan if it sticks.
Challengers to Trump’s July directive include several New York-led states, cities, counties and immigrant rights groups. They have argued that the Republican president’s move could leave several million people uncounted and cause California, Texas and New Jersey to lose seats in the US House of Representatives.
House districts are based on a state’s population count from the decennial national census.
Lawrence Hurley reports to Reuters that contenders have said Trump’s plan would dilute the political influence of states with the largest numbers of illegal immigrants, including heavily Democratic California, by discounting their true populations and depriving them of House seats. If California loses House districts, that would likely mean that Democrats would lose House seats, benefiting Republicans.
There are an estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States.
Until now, the government’s practice was to count everyone regardless of citizenship or immigration status. The US Constitution requires that the distribution of House seats be based on the “total number of people in each state.”
Challengers have argued that Trump’s policy violates both the Constitution and the Census Act, a federal law that describes how the census is conducted. Trump’s lawyers said in court documents that he acted within his authority and that the challengers lacked the necessary legal capacity to present the case.
The census itself does not collect data on a person’s citizenship or immigration status. The Trump administration would base its numbers on data collected elsewhere, although it has not explained the methods used. The US Census Bureau, a spokesperson said, “will make public the methods used to provide statewide counts once we have them finalized.”
By statute, the president must send a report to Congress in early January with the population of each of the states and their authorized number of House districts.
Once states are assigned their districts, they draw the boundaries of the districts themselves, which will be used first in the 2022 Congressional elections.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against Trump’s effort to add a citizenship question to the census. Critics said the question was intended to scare immigrants out of the population count and artificially reduce the number of population in heavily Democratic areas, also to benefit Republicans.
Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts joined Liberal justices in that ruling. But the addition to the court of Trump’s third appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, changes their dynamics.
